Lily White, Ink Black
by 1angelette
Summary: After the first school trial, a financially savvy student inclined to literary escapism takes pity on a socially inappropriate artist. A story about flowers, lace, tea, blood, what draws people together, and what drives them to murder.


**(A/N: Welcome to my first full-length Dangan Ronpa fanfiction! Have you consumed this entire canon, ideally in the official English translation conventions? Great! Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride. We're boarding this train early in chapter two daily life and staying on until the end of chapter three.)**

Late at night in the library, Toko knew she was taking a great risk being out here so soon before the start of night time. The danger was precisely what a dirty girl craved, if she wanted to be alone with her words and not leave them in a bedroom she shared with somebody who delighted in desecrating her work. This new luxury was worth the price of Leon and Sayaka's lives, according to Monokuma. She might as well make the most of it.

As the most precious minutes of her day dwindled away, she could almost feel the hands of the clock trace the compass arc across her skin. That was all the physical affection she would ever get. More wasn't deserved after the sins of her other self. Who would give it to her, anyway? Boys liked nice bodies and angelic voices. Toko had neither.

She couldn't identify when the tocks started to succumb in favor of ticks; only when the source of the separate sound drew closer could Toko identify the _clicks_ from her research on shoes as relevant to character clothing: Mary Janes.

A scowl twisted her face as she turned her head. Who would wear something like that in this godforsaken school? She never got along with girls anyway and hadn't paid much attention. Neither the lunkering muscleheads nor the girls with more technical talents who presumably fancied themselves practical were likely candidates. With a jolt she recalled that Junko as well as Sayaka was deceased, at the same time as she finally set eyes on the intruder.

There was Celestia Ludenberg in all her monochromatic glory, and not just perfectly coiffed dark hair on her pale head that shone with the slight dampness fresh out of the shower. (How had she effectively dried her twintails such that their only gleam was from grease, while the hair closest to her head ever so slightly dripped?) No, in her lace-cuffed hands was a stack of recycled paper and a dark, thick line of...

"N-n-no way..." Toko whispered. That was a Genius Author Fountain Pen! There must have been some mistake!

"I was assisting with recycling duty and believed this rightfully belonged to you," Celeste explained in her crisp belabored clockwork voice. Toko found herself nodding out of sympathy for a chore that put her in close quarters with Hifumi. "A few adverbs appeared that aren't in any other student's vocabulary."

"You wanted to s-salvage this experimental _tripe_ about vampires? And - and what the hell are you doing with that stick anyway? Did you think the sheets of shit needed stirring?" She had to befoul the gesture to convey her emotions correctly - if Celeste was reading her work that meant she wanted to understand her situation, right? In that case, why couldn't she see what worthless trash Toko Fukawa was? She had hidden so well in this school but the truth coming out was only a matter of time…

Celeste laughed, and it sounded eerily like all those metaphors Toko had only ever read. Little bells and all that conventional crap. For the first time someone was laughing with her, and not at her? Maybe she'd fallen asleep already and was hopelessly vulnerable, draped prone over a library table... "Quite to the contrary, I'm impressed with your take on such a typically Western genre. I'd like you to continue the endeavor and thought this tool might assist you."

That was taking Toko's breath away. An ally? To her authorial ambitions? In this school environment? Her nails had slipped between her teeth unconsciously. With an understanding smile, Celeste personally pressed the pen and paper between her palms. "Please," she insisted politely before taking her leave. The pale fingers that had slid under Toko's sleeve slipped out of the circle they had formed around her wrist.


End file.
